Marek Marciniak (1937-1996)

Marek Marciniak passed away on October 11, 1996. He was one of the most prominent Polish egypt- ologists and member of many scholarly under- takings organized by the Polish Centre of Medi- terranean Archaeology. A student of Tadeusz Andrzejewski and Jaro- slav Černy, Marciniak was for many years a close associate of Profes- sor Kazimierz Micha- łowski, directing on his behalf the Mediterranean Archaeology Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He was part, practi- cally from the very beginning, of everything that Polish archae- ologists in the Mediterranean were involved in after World War II. He participated in excavations in Alexandria and Tell Atrib in Egypt and at Palmyra in Syria. During the international campaign to save the monuments of Nubia, he headed an independent study mission to Dabod, but primarily he helped uncover the famous Faras cathedral with its splendid wall paintings. A turning point in his scholarly career came with his work in the mission to Deir el-Bahari, which resulted in an impor- tant publication of the Hieratic inscriptions from the temple of Tuthmosis III.

© PCMA 2008 – digital reprint PAM VIII [= Reports 1996] In 1981-1984 Marciniak serves as Scientific Secretary of the Polish Centre in Cairo. At the same time he devoted him- self to studying, archaeologically and epigraphically, the tomb of Ramesses III in the Valley of the Kings, a project begun but never finished by his mentor, Tadeusz Andrzejewski. He was planning an extensive publication, but the size of the project and his quest for perfection did not allow him to complete the work. Marek Marciniak will remain in our memory as an excel- lent scholar, a sensitive man and a charming colleague.

Karol Myśliwiec